Improving tomato yield and quality in the face of climate change

In the light of the forecasted world demographic growth and the global changes in climate, it is becoming a major challenge for society to provide sufficient amounts of fruit of high nutritional and sensory quality. While we are entering a period of increasingly rapid climate change, TomGEM aims to design new strategies to maintain high yields of fruit and vegetables produced at harsh temperature conditions, using the tomato as a reference fleshy fruit crop. TomGEM considers all developmental processes contributing to yield; including flower initiation, pollen fertility and fruit set and implements trans-disciplinary approaches to investigate the impact of high temperature on these traits. TomGEM applies a multi-actor approach involving tomato producers and breeders to provide new targets and innovative breeding and management strategies to foster breeding of new tomato cultivars with improved yield under suboptimal temperature conditions.

TomGEM addresses yield stability in high temperature conditions with the aim to produce or yield superior genotypes that are better adapted to high temperature conditions. TomGEM aims to understand the factors behind high temperature tolerance and addresses the issue of yield stability in adverse environmental conditions such as high temperatures. TomGEM is unique in a way that it gathers complementary expertise from academic and non-academic partners that contribute and converge their knowledge, resources and methodologies to address this one single question – the question of high yield under high temperature condition.

The TomGEM Kick-off meeting was organised together with the G2P-SOL consortium to foster networking and discuss potential interaction between the two initiatives. Both projects will be examining the genetic diversity of solanaceous crops with the aims of identifying and breeding varieties with more suitable traits.

Prof. Antonio Granell (CSIC, Spain) highlights how the large diversity of tomato traits available from traditional varieties and wild relatives allows the selection of heritable traits. TomGEM aims to do crosses between selected varieties to achieve better heat tolerance in tomatoes.

Dr. Carlos Baixauli (Fundación Cajamar Comunidad Valenciana, Spain) explains why temperature is the most decisive environmental factor for tomatoes. Even a small increase in temperature can cause many problems for tomato growth and development.

TomGEM Vision

Weight of annual tomato production is roughly equal to that of cattle and swine produce combined

18-29 °C

Ideal growth temperatures for tomatoes

Climate change threatens global crop production

Climate change adds further pressure to global crop production because agriculture is critically influenced by environmental conditions, such as temperature and precipitation. Agriculture as a whole will need to advance and adapt in order to tackle the challenges of the uncertain future that the world faces.

It is expected that the global population will grow to over 9 billion by 2050. Consequently, agricultural production must increase by 70% to meet future needs.

TomGEM aims to ensure future global food security by tackling the challenge of needing to increase agricultural production due to a rapidly growing population, even in the face of climate change. TomGEM will use tomato as a reference for fleshy fruit crops to provide new strategies towards breeding of heat-tolerant fruits with the aim that results can be transferred to other crops.

Area of tomato production is the same size as Slovakia

Worldwide production of tomato has doubled in the last 20 years. Production takes place over an area of 4.8 million hectares, an area equal to the size of Slovakia.
The tomato industry holds great economic importance and in Europe production is valued at approximately € 16 billion. However, climate change poses a significant threat to this industry.

TomGEM seeks to deliver the innovation and knowledge necessary to future-proof the industry against environmental stresses such as an increase in ambient temperature. TomGEM is hoping to develop new tomato varieties which, unlike current cultivated varieties, provide both high yield and high quality fruit when grown at high temperatures.

Weight of annual tomato production is roughly equal to that of cattle and swine produce combined

In 2013, the weight of tomato production amounted to 162 million tonnes. This was roughly equal to the production of cattle and swine combined.

Europe produced over 20 million tonnes of tomatoes in 2013 however; yields are under threat from climate change. TomGEM will consider all aspects of fruit development to identify variants in genes or gene regions which permit tomato growth at elevated temperatures without affecting yield or quality.

Ideal growth temperatures for tomatoes

The ideal temperatures for tomato growth are between 21-29 °C during the day and 18-21 °C at night.
Higher temperatures have negative effects on many aspects of fruit development leading to reduced yields and lower quality. Academic studies show that high temperature comprise fruit productivity and demonstrate that increases in ambient temperature of 4 °C can result in dramatic reductions in yield.

TomGEM will select for and breed towards tomato cultivars with desired traits when grown at harsh temperatures from 26-32 °C. To achieve this, TomGEM will implement innovative breeding and management strategies to ensure that the outcomes benefit all user communities including researchers, breeders, tomato producers and consumers.